A new study has found that iPhones may be to blame for declining birth rates.
A paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research notes that the U.S. birth rate has fallen 22 percent since 2007, when the first iPhone went on sale in the country. Researchers say the decline cannot be explained by economic conditions, contraceptive use, housing or child care costs or other commonly cited factors.
For Canada, the recent decline in fertility is also sharp: in 2024, the country reached a record low fertility rate of 1.25 children per woman, putting it on the list of ultra-low fertility rates – below 1.30 – along with Japan, Singapore and Spain.
Until 2011, the iPhone was only available in the U.S. to AT&T subscribers, allowing researchers to compare birth rates in counties with near-universal AT&T coverage and in counties with little or no coverage in the four years since the first iPhone was released.
Their findings show a striking relationship between access to an iPhone and declining fertility rates.
Teen birth rates fell 13.8 percent in counties without AT&T coverage, compared with steeper declines of 18.9 percent in counties with partial coverage and 26 percent in counties with near-universal coverage.
Fertility rates for women in their twenties fell by 10 percent in counties without coverage and by 14.6 percent in counties with extensive coverage. Among women in their thirties, birth rates rose 3.8 percent in counties without AT&T coverage but fell 1.2 percent in counties with extensive coverage.
Thus, the researchers suggest that access to the iPhone reduced the birth rate among women under 30 and suppressed the rise in birth rates among older women.
Taking into account other factors that may have led to a larger decline in birth rates in urban areas than in rural areas, the researchers suggest that access to an iPhone reduced birth rates by 4.5 to 8 percent among people ages 15 to 19 and by 3.2 to 6.6 percent among people ages 20 to 24.
The researchers concluded: “iPhone adoption explains 33–52 percent of the decline in total fertility rates among women aged 15–44.”
As for why exactly this is the case, the researchers come up with three candidates. iPhone use reduces face-to-face communication, provides greater access to information about contraception and abortion, and increases access to pornography.
Essentially, the smartphone is an unofficial form of contraception.
The theory is supported by previous studies, one of which, published in the American Economic Review, found that deactivating Facebook for four weeks increased the amount of offline communication with family and friends.
Another study, published in the scientific journal Child Development, found that in recent years fewer teenagers are engaging in adult activities such as sex, dating, drinking alcohol, working for pay, going out without parents and driving, and suggested a link to increased Internet use.
The researchers also used Google data to track the popularity of the search term “porn” and found that it more than doubled over the study period, while respondents to the University of Chicago General Social Survey who said they had watched an X-rated movie in the past year rose at every age between 25 and 44 between 2000 and 2018.
Meanwhile, declining fertility has led to a fertility crisis in both Canada and the United States, and Western countries in general are not producing children at replacement level in a modern society that relies on young workers to cover the expenses of older generations.
Other researchers point to housing costs, child care costs, women deciding to have their first child later, and a number of other factors, but the National Bureau of Economic Research paper points to only one possible answer: Declining fertility has less to do with the cost of raising a child and more to do with whether the relationships and sexual activity that produce children are being formed at all.
“We do not argue that the iPhone is the sole cause of the post-2007 decline,” the researchers write, “(but) our estimates imply that the advent of modern smartphones played a significant role in the decline in U.S. fertility.”
They add: “If this is the case, then the policy instruments to which governments have committed the largest sums—cash transfers, tax breaks, childcare subsidies, extended parental leave—do not by themselves reverse the behavioral shift that our estimates show is occurring.”
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